I saw it as well on RockPaperShotgun, and thought the same thing. And then I determined:

It's a Stardock game (make of this what you will)

It's single player only

It will require Steam

And I quickly lost interest, but this is because of my own biases. But there's inspiration here. The enemy in this game is trying to activate some portals or whatever, and you're trying to build up your forces, presumably defending against skirmishes as well as supporting a growing empire, but your main goal is to thwart this portal activation... that's kinda new. Most games have A and B at loggerheads mainly trouncing one another, this one potentially has both sides spinning their own plates, but having to decide how much of their resources they want to divert to their main task, which will win the game. It's a bit like Civilizations's science win scenario, where you fend off conflict well enough until you can launch that shuttle. It's a bit more complex than "beat the other guy into submission."

It reminds me as much of AVWW2 as AI War in that context, but with Daemonica focusing on doing his own thing, and only occasionally putting out your campfires.

I have long hoped that someone else would take up that idea and run with it! Whether or not they got the idea from us (and I hope they did get it from us, that would be awesome), I'm glad to see this. It's kind of like that old adage about how first person shooters were once called "doom-likes." I was always hoping that the AI War model might be the start of a larger subgenre, and maybe this is the start. We'll see!

I knew a number of folks over a Stardock back before Gamestop bought Impulse, and they're good folks. AI War sold REALLY well on their store, too, so I wouldn't be surprised if they noticed it.

To be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with what they're doing, and I couldn't be delighted. Hopefully you are not offended when I say that AI War was heavily inspired by Supreme Commander (with the camera, the looping build queues, etc). And Tidalis had a lot of inspiration from Tetris Attack. Our upcoming 4X game is heavily influenced by both Civilization and SimCity.

Anyway, I feel like the only way to really make a long-term mark on the industry as a whole is to make games that inspire future games that inspire future games. Fingers crossed.

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For a second I thought we were talking about That Which Sleeps, where you ARE the villain trying to take over the world.

time to do some necroing that game looks freaking sick! and it was September last year that that it was going to release as early access in a year as of which its been half so far I really really hope this game finishes ):

Their forums are active, not superly so, but there's a handful of posts that indicate that things are trucking along.

yes indeed they happened to have posted an update a few days before I checked it out and the developers seem to care about it (which is what I think matters most when it comes to things like this) but I am so in love with what that game has to show for it self that I would break my self imposed rule and play the shit out of it if It came to early access the idea of stealthily manipulating a world as an old god just makes me giddy for that matter the concept reminds me a hell of a lot of tlf which is always a good thing.

edit especially with only a 2 person team no wonder its taking as long as it is